White Rose of Avalon

Literature

  • Coleridge’s Gothic Influence

    For today’s post I would like to look at the influence of the Romantic poet Samuel Taylor Coleridge on other writers!   Christabel is a poem by Samuel Taylor Coleridge.    This poem was in fact never fully finished, but was nevertheless is one of Coleridge’s masterpieces. This poem was influential to later authors, such…

  • Doppelgängers

    Doppelgängers are doubles, oftentimes evil ones, that come into people’s lives and often cause great changes.    The concept of evil twins comes from doppelgänger.   Physical doubles of ourselves are common themes in literature, film, and television. Dante Gabriel Rossetti painted a work called How They Met Themselves while on his honeymoon with Elizabeth…

  • Symbolism of the Color White in Tales of the Supernatural

    Since ancient times colors have had deep symbolism.   Today I want to look at the symbolism of the color white, and its association with the supernatural!   In ancient Celtic tales white was a symbol of faeries.    This symbolism of white with faeries and the Faery realm carried over into Arthurian legends.  …

  • Horns

    For today’s post I would like to discuss the 2010 Joe Hill novel Horns, and the 2013 film based upon it.   The novel and film tell the story of Ig Perrish, who one day wakes up to find that he had begun to grow horns.    Now this man already had much anguish going…

  • Blodeuwedd and Flower Brides

    Blodeuwedd is a faerie bride, and Celtic goddess, who appeared in the fourth branch of the Welsh Mabinogion.   She was also known as “Flower Face” (the meaning of her name), “May Queen”, and “May Bride.”   Since I will soon be a May bride myself, I could not resist doing a post on this…

  • Heathcliff as Byronic Hero

    Anyone who knows me knows that I adore classic literature, and my favorite classic novel is Emily Bronte’s Wuthering Heights!    In honor of this today’s post is devoted to the character of Heathcliff.   Heathcliff is often named as a Gothic Villain, and he does bare many markers of the term, but he better…

  • Lady Susan

    Lady Susan is an early epistolary novella written by Jane Austen.   This short novel is unique within the Austen canon for being written in this style (epistolary being written entirely in letters) and for having a protagonist who is rather unscrupulous.   Lady Susan Vernon is a woman of means who had lost her…

  • Love in Edgar Allan Poe Work

    Poe is arguably the American Gothic horror master!    He wrote numerous short tales and poetry that continues to inspire us today.   He was also one of the premier literary critics of the Victorian era, often critiquing his contemporaries.   His personal life, though, was littered with utter tragedy. He fell in love with…

  • Idylls of the King

    In the nineteenth century Tennyson wrote Idylls of the King, a cycle of poetry based on the Arthurian legends.    He took inspiration from the medieval poets that wrote about the legends several centuries earlier.   Tennyson’s poetry was part of a nineteenth century obsession with medievalism and Arthurian legends. The poems would inspire much…

  • Lamia

    Lamia was a queen in ancient Greece who had an affair with Zeus, and was cursed by Hera.    Hera turned her into a half serpent woman.   Part of the curse included that Lamia killed her own children, and was tormented by this knowledge evermore! Lamia is also a species of monster that is…